Crushed Read online

  CRUSHED

  KATE HAMER

  For ‘M’, my strange enchanted boy

  And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

  The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

  Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s

  In deepest consequence.

  Macbeth, ACT 1, SCENE 3

  Parents, you have been my undoing and your own.

  A Season in Hell, ARTHUR RIMBAUD

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  ACT I: THE FALL

  1: Phoebe

  2: Orla

  3: Phoebe

  4: Grace

  5: Orla

  6: Grace

  7: Phoebe

  8: Orla

  9: Phoebe

  10: Grace

  ACT II: THE DEEP

  11: Phoebe

  12: Grace

  13: Phoebe

  14: Orla

  15: Grace

  16: Phoebe

  17: Grace

  18: Orla

  19: Phoebe

  ACT III: THE CUT

  20: Grace

  21: Phoebe

  22: Grace

  23: Orla

  24: Grace

  25: Phoebe

  26: Phoebe

  27: Phoebe

  28: Grace

  29: Orla

  30: Phoebe

  31: Orla

  32: Phoebe

  33: Grace

  34: Orla

  35: Phoebe

  36: Phoebe

  37: Grace

  38: Phoebe

  39: Orla

  40: Phoebe

  41: Orla

  42: Grace

  43: Phoebe

  44: Orla

  45: Grace

  46: Phoebe

  47: Grace

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  The idea of having a knife close by without him even knowing plunges through me in a shock and wakes me up from this lank and dreadful state. The pointed carving knife is too sharp to hide in my pocket – it would slice right through. I take it out of the drawer. The curve of it has a deathly menace. In this house it’s used for carving, boning, forcing deep into the flesh and twisting there. It’s been here for as long as I remember, and each and every time I’ve glimpsed that menace it’s caused me to shudder, even at the age of five, so now it seems the most fitting and best thing to take, like it’s been waiting for its purpose all along. He will not see it. He will not know it’s there. Only I will know that, how close it’s got to him, and when he leaves, when I see his figure moving off away across the fields, only I will know that there was another scenario already played out in my mind, one where I’ve torn out my anger and fear on him, one where he is left ripped and bloody, his insides hanging out in ribbons. And knowing that will cause electricity to stir about me. It will make my hair stand straight up with static and the power of it will gather inside my belly. It will keep me going for days. It will show me how I’m in control, of my thoughts and everything, and if I order it all correctly they can work for me rather than against. I take one of my mother’s snowy tea towels – bleached, then boiled for an hour on the stove’s top until a season of mist and rain fogs the windows – and I wrap it round and round the shining blade and with precise care insert the package in the pocket of my mac.

  Act I

  THE FALL

  1

  Phoebe

  It was a book full of hate. The words must have been scratched underground at the dawn of time. They should’ve stayed there and never come to the surface.

  It set it all off again.

  I’ve had to come to the only place that can calm me down. The corner of Pulteney Bridge. The only thing is, I’ve lost a shoe so people keep looking. My tights have an open gash from toe to thigh, flashing bright white flesh. I try to cover my face with my hair so I won’t be recognised. Things get reported back. I don’t know where my bag has gone – perhaps I dropped it on the way and didn’t notice.

  I’d been calm as the sea before that book. It may as well have come crawling towards me on its elbows, dragging its black and bursting body behind. I should have heeded the inkling I had straight away that it was a bomb about to explode.

  I lean against the cool stone of the bridge and look over the water to the weir. Usually it soothes me, but not today. In this water are hidden many ancient things. Sometimes one pops out – a coin, a tin mask, a figure of a bull, a crown, a pin. People are always surprised. Why should they be? The river is at the end of a vast drain sluicing straight down from the Roman bathhouse.

  The sun glints off the water. The ancient buildings look more friendly in this light. It turns their darkness the colour of honey. The trees are full of early summer and shake their leaves in the breeze. Yet despite the bright surroundings I cannot be contained this time and I have to lean further over the wall, sickness cramping my stomach.

  I’d tried to explain to Grace.

  ‘It’s just a book,’ she said. ‘It’s just a dusty old copy with half the pages falling out because they won’t pay for new ones. What are you on about?’

  Her soft blue eyes travelled from side to side as she looked behind me. Her hair is cropped close to her head. The sight of it always makes me feel tender because I know she cuts it herself. It’s so short you can see the shape of her pretty little skull. I wanted to get her attention back. I cupped my hand over my mouth and whispered to her, quoting from the text.

  ‘I’ve been eating on the “insane root” again. Not now. Not today. A couple of weeks ago.’

  Her eyes snapped back on my face and she nodded and gave a little laugh. ‘I’m partial to a few substances myself.’ Then she frowned. ‘You want to be careful, though, you know. Stuff like that can be dangerous.’

  I turned away from her. I was bored of tellings-off. I felt light and free. Nothing bad was going to happen. It was just the warm day that had made me feel there could be a bomb, and Mr Jonasson being so close. All the pieces of me that had flown out came back and began fitting themselves together safely with hardly any gaps left in between.

  That’s where it should’ve stopped.

  But, no. I had to take it further, didn’t I? I had to go on testing myself, trying things out.

  I’ve been told once, thoughts are just that by a woman with a face that looked like a little pussy-cat. The more I stared at her the more she seemed to resemble one.

  Usually my tests are of the mundane kind. If I think There will be a red car when I turn this corner, perhaps there will be one. What if I wish for blackberry ice cream on the menu and there it is? If I want that plate to fall, it might and shatter on the stone floor. If, if, if, if. The results so far have been inconclusive.

  Not this time.

  It must’ve been the darkness of the story that made me do it. It was to show myself it couldn’t happen, that the light and airy feeling was how things were going to be from now on. One last little time, I thought. TRY IT OUT.

  Was it five or ten minutes later we heard the commotion? Perhaps I was the only one that went towards it. I slipped out and ran down the road until I saw. There was mangled metal. Blood ran down the walls.

  I froze a good few moments before I ran again.

  I reach for the front door key that I wear on a heavy chain around my neck. It’s more precious to me than any piece of jewellery could ever be. Hard won. I clasp it now like a rosary. There’s probably keys down there in the water too, along with the other old Roman stuff washed down from the baths. I can almost see it all, bubbling up to the top. Statues and pendants and nails surfacing at once in a thick and filthy mass, and I feel sick again an
d have to lean right over the wall. A car behind me beeps, once, loudly. They thought I was about to fall, or jump. Maybe I was. I need to move, but maybe I don’t have a choice.

  2

  Orla

  Well, that was sickening.

  I feel shaken to the pit of my stomach as I walk away. They haven’t got enough tents to cover it all up because the blood goes right along the wall on Walcot Street. They were trying to do it in the chaos and then they made everyone drive or walk away and closed the road as quick as they could. Horrific. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen in a place like Bath. I didn’t mean to look but it’s hard not to. It was mesmerising. It’s unbelievable how much blood people have in them. The red was in a stripe coming out from the back of the plastic they’ve rigged up. I could see how it had got cemented in between the blackened old stones and I wondered how they were ever going to get it out. They’ll have to scrape right into the gaps and use hoses so there’ll be a wash of pink water swirling across the road.

  Behind the yellow tape there’s people trundling around in white plastic suits now. They look so out of place against all that dirty ancient stone, it’s like flickering beings have been beamed in from the future. My heart feels like it’s never going to slow down to its usual pace. I want to cry so badly. I’m only trying to hold on until I get home. I concentrate hard on looking at the normal little things I see every day to keep me going until I can wail in my bedroom. There’s a shop of mirrors full of glitter. There’s the giant carved head looming over the undertaker’s door – Bath is full of odd things like that, carvings and statues and old buildings. When I was little I always used to whisper ‘Hello’ to the head as I passed because he looked like he was asking, ‘Is it your turn yet? Will you be next?’ And I thought starting a conversation might please him so he’d decide not to choose me. He seems to be staring extra hard and pointedly today. It must be because of what just happened. ‘Hello,’ I whisper in a trembling voice. ‘Not me right now. I’m not ready.’

  By the time I get to the fruit shop with bright green plastic grass in the window, my breathing has stopped hurting so much.

  How many times and in different lights and times of day have I seen all these ordinary things? Hundreds. Thousands. I try to make them take the place of what I’ve just seen.

  That’s when I see Phoebe’s bag dumped in the shop doorway. The sickness returns. What’s happened to her? What’s happened to her? I pick the bag up and stand, rubbing the striped canvas between my fingers, wondering what to do. It seems strangely violent, this familiar bag being here that I’ve seen a million times, swinging on Phoebe’s shoulder, the hard outline of books showing through the fabric. It’s not exactly her dumped body but something makes me think of it. I hug it close, shaking now. God, she frightens me sometimes. It terrifies me the way she carries on. My heart lurches: what if it’s her that’s been killed on Walcot Street? What if it was her blood I saw? I close my eyes and sway, the idea being so shockingly awful. No, it can’t be. I won’t allow myself to think that. I’ll never make it back.

  I hurry on, the taste of home so strong now it’s almost on my tongue. I can’t wait to collapse inside and feel safe, to phone Phoebe and make sure she’s all right. But up ahead are Belinda and her crew, and they’re walking so slowly I’ll have no choice but to pass them – it’ll look too odd if I slow down to their pace behind.

  As I catch up with them their tense bright faces tighten towards me.

  ‘Orla, did you see it?’ Samantha’s eyes are starry with the sight of the blood. The ribbon of it in the sun is still glittering her eyes.

  ‘Yes. Horrible.’

  We all nod even though I can see it’s put a spring in all their steps. They’ll go home and dissect it together, crouching on one of their beds with their arms around their knees and big, pointy-cornered smiles on their faces they can’t wipe off they’re so excited.

  It’s such a beautiful day. The sky is a perfect blue. I have an intense longing to be off this dusty pavement with these girls clucking and mauling over the horror like they’re actually sticking their fingers into it and dabbling there. I think of our garden just down the road. It’s my favourite place in the world. Walled in on three sides and with an apple tree in the middle. In the summer, green vines crawl up the brickwork and the scent of the passion flowers passes over me. Mum and Dad aren’t really that into it so I can poke about in there to my heart’s content. Even when it’s cold I’ll sit out on the bench wrapped in a blanket. In the winter the plants have their own bare beauty with all their bones and pods showing like they’ve been turned inside out. I need to be there now.

  ‘Got to go.’ A wave of awkwardness washes over me. What’s wrong with me? I can’t even make a quick getaway without breaking into a terrible sweat.

  ‘Hey,’ Belinda calls after me. ‘What was it Grace was saying today?’

  I shrug like I don’t know but I heard perfectly well. I was sitting right next to her. Someone had just read a piece out from the supplementary notes. It was Simon, I think.

  ‘The role of the witch is to demonstrate the female, intuitive, otherworldly power of the mind.’

  And while we were all pondering it, supposedly thinking about discussion points, Grace came up with one of her own.

  She said, ‘Did somebody actually write this shit?’

  It wasn’t even under her breath. In a way it was kind of thrilling, like breaking the law must be.

  Everyone heard but nothing happened about it. It never does. She gets away with anything because of her circumstances. Grace might be only sixteen, while Phoebe and me are seventeen, but Grace always seems by far the oldest – as if she’s twice our age and she’s been married and had three kids already.

  Finally I see our house and the face of it seems like the sweetest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. As I’m trying to get the key into the lock, the door opens and I collapse inside into Mum’s arms.

  ‘Did you see?’ she asks. ‘Carol from church just called and told me what’s happened. She’s stuck in the traffic.’

  I nod and I can feel my mouth turning down so sharp at the corners it actually hurts.

  ‘Oh Orla.’ She hugs me tight. ‘My darling, darling girl. I was hoping you hadn’t. I was hoping you’d never have to witness something like that.’

  3

  Phoebe

  The door glides shut behind me and I stand in the hallway, sniffing the air like a hunted animal.

  She’s here.

  She might be smoking upstairs but the smell gets into every last corner of the house. Left to its own devices, this place smells of its own loveliness. Hard to put your finger on it: a smidgen of dust, honey, jute rugs, good clean soap.

  The cigarette smoke is an abomination; it takes forever to fade.

  There’s the faint sound of the television from above. The front door closed with such a small metallic click, I’m hoping against hope I’m as yet undetected. My heart beats so hard I can feel it in my jaw. I need time to deal with the dreadful chaos of my appearance before I’m seen. To deal with the hole in my tights that splits down my leg from thigh to foot, with my bare toes that are grey and dirty at the ends where they’ve scraped the pavement, and decide what to do about the missing shoe.

  I begin softly, softly creeping up the first set of stairs that leads to the sitting room.

  The fourth step creaks and I look down and my stomach twists into a terrible and painful panic. It’s all I can do to not cry out because for the first time I see the book, the one that caused all the trouble, has been in my grasp the whole time like we’ve grown into each other. My hand is clamped so hard into it in a claw, I have to use my other hand to prise the fingers off one by one. Deep indentations are left on the soft red cover and the gold letters that spell out Macbeth.

  How could I not have known it was there? I could’ve thrown it in the river, where it belongs, but now it’s got into the house, infecting everything. It’s brought the murder inside. It’s b
rought in its hate.

  There’s a movement overhead and I have no choice but to shove the book up my jumper. I look behind me and with another lurch see that my cut toe has left a badge of blood on the golden boards of the hallway. I slither back down, fall to my knees, lick my cuff and scrabble it off.

  A voice calls from upstairs.

  ‘Phoebe?’

  Oh God. Oh God. If I rush past as if I haven’t heard, even with hobbling on the side of my foot, and get beyond the living room and then up the second flight of stairs, I might just make it to the bathroom. At least there’s a lock on the one on the upstairs landing. As I sprint upstairs I hear her clonking across the wooden floor of the living room in her heels. The noise gets louder the closer she gets to the door and I vault up the second flight. I lunge for the bathroom, just managing to pull the skirt flaring out behind me as if I’m tucking in my tail. I push the bolt across as I hear the living room door open.

  Her voice calls up the stairs. ‘Phoebe? Is that you?’

  I keep silent, breathing onto the mirror above the sink so my image is obliterated by condensation. It shrinks to a tiny circle, a nucleus of itself, and I huff out so the mist balloons again. My fingers pass all over my head and face, smoothing, flattening, wiping, making good any damage.

  Close to my ear – ‘Phoebe, what’s the matter?’

  My whole body jerks. How come I didn’t hear her coming up the stairs? She must’ve taken her shoes off. She’s so close the door vibrates.

  ‘Nothing.’ I stand on the tiles, balling my fists.

  ‘I need to talk to you, Phoebe.’

  ‘What about?’ I ease off my shoe and as silently as possible lift the lid of the bin and place it inside. I put my hands under my skirt, hook my thumbs into the waistband of my tights and peel them down.